OpenFields

1547: Agriculture in the UK - structure

This paper is extracted from the Defra publication ‘Agriculture in the United Kingdom Chapter 3 The Structure of the Industry 2011’.

Year of Publication2012

In 2011 compared with 2010: 70% of land in the UK is farmed; there was another record area of oilseed rape planted of 705,000 hectares; cereals saw a modest increase to 3.1 million hectares: dairy herd numbers decreased by 1.8% to 1.8 million, continuing the long term decline; the total pig population was almost unchanged at 4.4 million; sheep and lamb numbers totalled 31.6 million, rising by 1.8%; there was an unexpected rise in the number of people working on UK farms to 476 thousand. In 2000 23% of land holders were under 45 years old and a further quarter were aged 65 or older. By 2010, only 14% were under 45 years old and 32% were aged 65 and over.